Turn-Based Strategy at its Best

"Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones" is the second "Fire Emblem" game released in the United States, after one simply titled "Fire Emblem." You follow an intense and complex story that you'd expect from Fire Emblem, but instead of one "Lord" as your main character, there are two. Their names are Eirika and Ephraim. The story mainly follows Eirika in the beginning; after a while you get to choose to follow her or Ephraim; eventually, you band both sides together to create a huge army.

If you haven't played any other Fire Emblem games, they are Turn-Based Strategy games involving medieval combat. There's always new features to expect around every corner, and the games in this series always tend to present a challenging scenario, without making you rip out all your hair in the first two minutes of gameplay. You equip your soldiers with weapons that mainly consist of swords, lances, axes, bows, magic tomes, and staves, with a few more. For every weapon except magic tomes and staves, there are three levels - Iron, Steel, and Silver, as well as many special types like Brave and Killer. The weapons except for tomes, staves, and bows, form a triangle of advantages and disadvantages, this is also mimicked onto different types of magic. Your units have many stats you can edit as well to increase their performance, and you can even upgrade them with a Master Seal item or by getting them to level 20.

If you've played another Fire Emblem game, you know cavaliers become paladins, mercenaries become heroes, knights become generals, etc. It's different in Sacred Stones. When you go to upgrade a unit, you are given the option of one of two upgrade classes. A cavalier can become a paladin or a great knight, and the list goes on and on.

Mainly because of the vast character customization options, Sacred Stones is considered the best Fire Emblem game in the US to date.